


Outgrowing Shells

by devilinthedetails



Category: PIERCE Tamora - Works, Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Family, Friendship, Gen, Ocean, Shells, Tide Pools, beach, mentoring, wonder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-10
Updated: 2018-04-10
Packaged: 2019-04-21 07:28:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14279985
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devilinthedetails/pseuds/devilinthedetails
Summary: Zahir sees the ocean for the first time.





	Outgrowing Shells

Outgrowing Shells

Zahir had never glimpsed the ocean before the court traveled to the Summer Palace a month after he became the king’s squire. Before he heard the thunder of the waves—loud and impressive as a hundred charging horses—and saw the swelling mass of water that stretched farther than a hawk’s eyes could see, he had believed that he had seen most of the important parts of Tortall during the training camps Lord Wyldon took the pages on every year. Standing on a craggy beach outside Blue Harbor and gaping at the endless Emerald Ocean, he was forced to admit if only to himself, the audience before whom he most detested being wrong, that Tortall might have more wonders in it than he had yet beheld or explored.

“I never imagined the world could hold so much water.” Zahir had meant to confine that thought to his head instead of humiliating himself by sharing it with the king, the queen, and the two youngest princesses. To hide his embarrassment at his own ignorance, he gazed out at the waves, shifting and substantial as sand dunes with their foam white as fresh goat’s milk, and tried to count them before they crashed against the stony shore though he knew they were without number, and that when they broke, they would be remade in new waves. 

Before he had laid eyes on the ocean, he had been told by Sir Myles and his brightly colored maps that the world was made up of more water, most of it salt, than land. He had memorized that fact along with a thousand others in case it showed its ugly face at an examination (it never had), but he had not understood or even believed what that idea meant until he stood overlooking the Emerald Ocean for the first time in his life. Recalling another truth about the vast, surging ocean before him, he added, trying to conceal his awe beneath scorn, “There’s salt in this water, so you can’t drink it. What is the point of water if you can’t drink it?” 

“The ocean is beautiful.” Princess Lianne’s voice was so soft that Zahir had to strain to hear it over the briny breeze that whipped at his ears and tasted of salt on his tongue. “You might as well ask what the point of beauty is.” 

Zahir might have argued that beauty was as superfluous as undrinkable water but was cut off before he could being by Princess Vania, who screamed as she darted past him to the place where the waves danced with the stones, “The point of the ocean is swimming, Zahir.” 

Princess Lianne raced after her little sister, and, before Zahir could blink, the two of them were giggling as they waded amidst the waves. 

“I don’t see the point of swimming either,” grumbled Zahir. As his father said, if the gods in their wisdom had intended people to swim, people would have been born with gills. 

“The ocean brings us seafood and trade, both of which vital to our economy and sustenance, Squire Zahir.” Queen Thayet settled on a rock warmed by the shining sun to read a book, and, satisfied with a practical answer, Zahir’s complaints about the frivolity of oceans subsided. 

“Come, let us walk and discover more of the ocean’s charms.” King Jonathan steered Zahir along the beach with a palm on his shoulder. 

“You’ve already discovered the charms of this ocean, sire,” Zahir reminded him, biting back a grin. “You’ve been here before.” 

“I have and I haven’t.” King Jonathan’s smile was cryptic. “Every time I go to the ocean, I find I’ve changed and so has it. I never gaze upon the same ocean twice.” 

“Very wise, Your Majesty.” Zahir shot his knightmaster a sidelong glance, assessing whether he could risk a saucy remark. Deciding that the king was in a comfortable, private mood where levity was permissible and impertinence was unlikely to be punished, Zahir rolled the dice and hoped that he wouldn’t come up with snake eyes for incorrectly deciphering his knightmaster’s present demeanor. “Did you say that just to sound wise or because you believe it?” 

“I always say what I believe, and I always sound wise, squire.” The king chuckled. 

Zahir’s attention was captured by a pool of water trapped between rocks worn down by centuries of waves the way the wind beat stones in the desert to sand before he could respond with a witty quip. Jerking his chin at the pool that had captivated him, he observed, “That looks more like an oasis.” 

“It’s a tide pool.” King Jonathan knelt beside the pool, and, mirroring him, Zahir saw that the water brimmed with vibrant life in a rainbow of colors. Spongy plants Zahir would never have dreamed even during a fever grew alongside strange creatures he might have touched if he weren’t worried they might be poisonous. His father had always insisted that the more breathtaking an animal was, the deadlier it was. “The water rises above here at high tide, and then much of it ebbs away, leaving behind this tide pool when it recedes.” 

“A tide pool is a strange thing.” Zahir squinted against the sun that threatened to burn his cheeks to crisps as he gazed into the trapped water. “It breeds strange and marvelous life too.” 

“We are all products of our environment, Zahir.” King Jonathan dipped a hand into the pool and pulled it out clutching a crawling animal wrapped in a spiraling aquamarine shell. “Take this hermit crab for example. It will live inside this shell that is its home and protection until it outgrows this shell. Then it will find a new shell, abandon this old husk, and slip into the new shell until it outgrows that one too, continuing the cycle.” 

“Hermit crabs are like people then.” Zahir, figuring the hermit crab had to be safe to touch if his knightmaster was holding it, stroked the odd creature’s shell with a tentative finger. “We never truly outgrow our shells. We only move into new ones just like hermit crabs.”


End file.
